Lesson 01 - The Basics

Lesson 1-1 - Designing a List of Performance Measures

Before you begin these exercises you should read the Reports Overview page and glance through the Reports List, Viewer, and Designer documentation to be familiar with what the different pages do.

Lesson 1-1 - Designing a List of Performance Measures

Goal - The goal of this lesson is to create a report which lists all of the Performance Measures on your site, view the report by using the preview tab, name, and save the report.

Steps to create a new custom report -

1. Click Reports on the main menu
2. Click on New Report
3. Under the "Data Sources" tab - select the Performance Measures table (PerfMeasures)
• To learn more about what tables and databases check out this article.
4. Click Continue to Fields
5. Under the "Fields" tab - Click on the drop down arrow and choose "Title". Leave the "Description" box as it is (this will be discussed in another lesson).
6. Click on the "Preview" tab to see the custom report you just created.
7. Click on "Save as" tool bar button, name your report, for example "Lesson 1-1", and enter the category you want the report to be shown under, for example "Training", click ok. Now you have a saved custom report.

Note: This custom report shows you real time information. If you want to take a snap shot of the current information you can export the information. i.e. Excel. (Exporting will be discussed in lesson 1-5.)

 

Figure 1. Screen shot from report made in Lesson 1-1

 

Lesson 1-2 - Adding additional fields, combining tables, and using field formats.

Goal - The Goal of the lesson is to add to the Lesson1-1 report, the tag, and created date for the Performance Measures.

1. If you saved the report from the previous lesson you will need to re-open it in the designer by clicking on the pencil icon on the report in the list.
2. Let's add some more information to the report. Click the Data Sources tab.
3. Add the PerfMeasure_Tags and Tags tables - this will give us access to the tags for the Performance Measures
1. The tables with an underscore and two object names like "PerfMeasure_Tags" are called "Junction Tables" and define the connection between one object and another. To learn more about Junction Tables check out this article.Select the Allow Nulls option on the Data Sources tab (this will show us Performance Measures even if they don't have a tag. Not selecting this box will only show Performance Measures that exist and have a tag)
4. Click on the Fields Tab
5. From the next dropdown select the Name field from the Tags table.
6. In the description box change the value from "Name" to "Tag". This will change the column header on the report for this field.
7. Let's also add the created date for the Performance Measures, select CreateDate under the PerfMeasure table from the next dropdown.
8. The CreateDate is a time format so select the Monday, Month DD, YYYY format from the format dropdown
9. Click preview and you will see the fields have been added
10. Click on the "Save as" tool bar button, name your report, for example "Lesson 1-2", and enter the category you want the report to be shown under, for example "Training", click ok. The custom report is saved.

 

Figure 2. Screen shot from final report made in Lesson 1-2

Lesson 1-3 Visually Grouping & Subtotal Function

Goal - The goal of this lesson is demonstrate the power of the Visually Grouping function and subtotal function using the report created in Lesson 1-2.

1. If you saved the report from the previous lesson you will need to re-open it in the designer by clicking on the pencil icon on the report in the list.
2. Notice how some tags have multiple Performance Measures listed. We can visually group by the tag and have a cleaner report. Click on the "Fields" tab.
3. Click the "VG" check box in the "Name" field row. Note: When using VG it must be the first field in the fields tab. If the field you select to visually group by is not the first field then use the up arrow icons to make it the first field.
4. Click the "Preview" tab. Now the data is sorted by the Tag. Let's add subtotals for each Tag.
5. Click the "Fields" tab.
6. Select the Gear icon next to the Performance Measure Title field
7. For the subtotal function, select "Count"
8. Select Ok (If you are on a smaller screen you may need to scroll down to find it)
9. Select the Add Subtotals checkbox (Located at the bottom of the Fields tab)
10. Click the "Preview" tab. Subtotals have been added. Let's save the report.
11. Click on the "Save as" tool bar button, name your report, for example "Lesson 1-3", and enter the category you want the report to be shown under, for example "Training", click ok. The custom report is saved.

 

Figure 3. Screen shot from report made in Lesson 1-3

Lesson 1-4 Adding a Summary and a Title

Goal - The goal of this lesson is to add a summary grid and title to the report created in Lesson 1-3.

1. If you saved the report from the previous lesson you will need to re-open it in the designer by clicking on the pencil icon on the report in the list.
2. There is a lot of data here so let's add a summary. Click the "Summary" tab.
3. Under the "Fields" dropdown - Click on the drop down arrow and choose "Title" from the Performance Measures table.
4. I'd also like to see the total number of "Performance Measures" by Tag. Repeat Step 2 but select "Name" from the tag table.
5. Select Group from the function dropdown for the Tag Name
6. Select Count for the function dropdown for PerfMeasures
7. Now let's add a column for the tag description to make this summary more informative - from the blank field dropdown select Description from the Tag table.
8. Let's add a grand total so we can see how many Performance Measures we have. Select Add Subtotals
9. Rearrange the rows in this order using drag and drop arrows on the right. Tag, Description, PerfMeasures
10. Selecct Sort for the Tag name row so that the summary is alphabetical
11. Click the "Preview" tab. You will have to scroll down to the bottom to see the report.
12. Let's move the summary to the bottom of the report. Click on the "Style" tab.
13. Scroll down until you see the report order. Click on the down arrow next to "Summary" until it is below "Details". Now it will be at the bottom of this report. Let's also add a title.
14. Click on the "Misc" tab. In the "Title" text box enter "Performance Measures by Tag"
15. Click the "Preview" tab. Now the Report is titled and in the order I want. Let's Save it.
16. Click on the "Save as" tool bar button, name your report, for example "Lesson 1-4", and enter the category you want the report to be shown under, for example "Training", click ok. The custom report is saved.

 

Figure 4. Screen shot from report made in Lesson 1-4

Lesson 1-5 Exporting a Report

Goal: The goal of this lesson is to export the report created in Lesson 1-4 to Excel using report designer. This can also be done in Report Viewer by selecting Excel from the "export type" drop down box and clicking the export button then follow step 3.

Note: To retain this information as it shows on your current custom report let's export the information to Excel. Remember to capture the information showing on a current custom report you must download the report. Otherwise the report can change each time you open the report since it reads the data in real time from your data base.

1. Click on the Excel button on the tool bar.
2. Depending on your browser you may see a box that asks "Do you want to open or save this file".
3. Click Save or Save As
4. Decide where you want to save the file and name the file.
5. You now have an Excel document which shows the information on your computer from the Lesson 1-4 report.
6. If excel asks for any permissions while opening say Yes